Talking to Kevin Franco of Enthrill about Selling eBooks at Independent Bookstores

eBook display at Mable's Fables in Toronto

The uncertain evolution of retail bookselling continues unabated with news that Amazon is intent on providing same-day delivery for books and other products.

Add that info to the pile of things to freak out about later because right now there is something interesting happening that could help #indiebooksellers to better compete in the current world of Kobos, Kindles, Nooks, and iWhatevers.

Enthrill, a boutique tech company from Calgary, believes that they have an answer for the question of how brick and mortar booksellers can offer ebooks to their customers.

ebooks to go allows readers to buy selected e-titles at the point of sale within the indiebookseller environment. Paper plus digital while supporting your local book shop.

The current initial selection is very limited and doesn’t really allow for the unique sense of curation that indiebooksellers are known for but I would expect that to change over time as the project develops.

Enthrill has also introduced a really interesting affiliate-type program that benefits the local indie bookseller for any purchase that a reader makes through the program no matter where they are in the world.

For instance, if you buy all your books and ebooks from Mable’s Fables in Toronto or Galiano Books out here on the left coast and you happen to purchase an ebook through Enthrill while you’re on vacation in the Philippines then your hometown bookstore receives a portion of that transaction.

It all sounds promising despite the regretable inclusion of DRM on the ebook files.

Please take the time to listen to the conversation that I had with Kevin Franco from Enthrill about ebooks, indiebooksellers and what the future might hold for brick and mortar retailing.

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Sean Cranbury is the Executive Editor of Books on the Radio. He's also Founder and Creative Director of the Real Vancouver Writers' Series.
Sean is General Manager at the legendary Storm Crow Tavern and consults with literary arts organizations on digital communications strategies.